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Infections and Safer Sex

Staying safe from disease is an important part of sexual health. Visit your doctor for regular vaginal exams to help ensure you stay healthy. During these exams your doctor can check for infection and can also do a Pap smear to help prevent cervical cancer. These exams are a good opportunity for you to talk to your doctor about birth control and other sexual health issues.

Birth control methods were developed to prevent pregnancy, but some birth control methods also help protect you against sexually transmitted infections. Use the link below to learn more about the infections people can get from unprotected sex and about genital infections not passed exclusively through sex.

Safer sex means using a condom and taking care to protect yourself and your partners from infection. Although sex is never risk-free, it can be safer. Using condoms for vaginal and anal sex is only one part of a safer sex strategy. Read the information about safer sex on this Web site and talk to your partner(s) about how you will protect each other from sexually transmitted infections.